Introduction

As an introduction we have an interview with George Siemens on the Impact of Blogs and Wikis on Learning. George is an instructor at Red River College, Manitoba, the author of the blog "eLearnspace" and the book "Knowing Knowledge".
In this interview George makes the points that "learning today is about forming networks with each other" and that blogs and wikis enable this in addition to providing "a new ability to share content". Listen and enjoy.

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Blog - Wiki Differences
Listen to a debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon on "Blogs vs. Wikis" and then see below about the differences between blogs and wikis.

BLOGS

• personal, less collaborative. a posting is owned by poster
• text is considered to be static: once posted, the posting doesn't change
• tends towards long scrolls (Bernstein)
• monological: typically monologue with audience commentary
• temporal: last in first out
• captures change in thinking/self/ideas
• speech: spontaneous, non-revisable and as permanent as memory
• generally light on cross linking: dominantly sequential
• research blogs and others can create extensive hypertextual webs
• creating internal links is painful and secondary to the text
• links used to connect outside the blog
• knowledge accumulates at the top
• knowledge is static but contextual: situated
• dominantly chronological - but essays are possible
• immediate: written in the moment, written of the moment

WIKIS

• can be personal but open to collaboration. a node/topic is considered public space
• aim is creation of documents (individual pages as well as the entire wikiweb)
• tends towards expressing ideas as relationships between pages, creating a NetworkOfTopics
• a-termporal: nodes change not by time but by way of development
• text: considered, revised, and as permanent as print
• captures (and then erases) the processes of writing
• doesn't capture changes in thought/ideas, but creates artifacts of those changes
• encourages cross linking: dominantly structural, a-temporal
• hypertext linking central to text creation
• knowledge becomes webbed: situated, contextualized but
• knowledge is ephemeral: it changes, can be changed
• mediated: written in the topic, of the topic